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“Do you see any?” Eir asked. “This is a force like no other. We go north to destroy the Dragonspawn.”

Knut gritted his teeth. “You’d better not fail again, or his wrath will fall on us all.”

“It won’t happen again. We’ll destroy him this time.”

“Outlaw, huh?” Rytlock muttered as he and Eir drew the heavy wagon through Hoelbrak.

“Outcast, more like,” Eir corrected, “temporarily.”

The charr nodded. “An outlaw steals a pig. An outcast pretty much destroys a whole city.”

“That’s right.”

Rytlock mulled the response for a while before asking, “What did you do?”

“Brought on a blizzard—twenty feet of snow. Ice sharp as daggers. Roofs caved. People died. The Dragonspawn did not like being nearly killed.”

The charr whistled through his teeth. “Never leave an enemy alive. That was your mistake.”

“It’s the Dragonspawn’s mistake, too.”

Well north of Hoelbrak, the charr and the norn staggered to a stop and parked the wagon on the tundra. Just beside the wagon lay the wreckage of Big Snaff.

“There’s one of them,” Eir said.

The damage was severe. The golem’s stone head had split in half, with Big Snaff’s left eye and nose and mouth lying close by but the rest of his face some fifty feet away. His golem body lay in three pieces nearby—two mangled legs and a battered torso with broken arms.

Snaff and Zojja jumped down from the wagon to investigate. After a few minutes of stooping and peering, Snaff called back, “Worse than I thought.”

“What happened to it?” Rytlock asked.

Eir pantomimed a pair of talons hoisting the golem into the air and letting it go.

“You mean, you marched that thing in against the Dragonspawn, and it hurled it back out?” Rytlock asked.

“Many miles back out,” Eir replied.

“The stanchions are shattered,” Zojja reported. “The servos are split. We could salvage some thylid crystals—maybe—use some of the gear work elsewhere—maybe—but there’s no way this golem’s going to fight again.”

Garm let out a howl, his nose pointed north.

The team looked to the horizon, where the other broken figure lay.

“Take them there,” Eir commanded.

The dire wolf trotted to Snaff, bit down on his shirt, and hurled him up across his back. The wolf then did the same for Zojja. Once the two were seated, he galloped out across the mossy ground, heading for the next wreck site.

“Let’s go,” Eir said, hauling on the wagon.

Amazed and unnerved, Rytlock staggered forward, pulling as well.

That night, the group gathered around a campfire. Eir and Rytlock reclined on the wagon they had hauled all day while Caithe, Logan, and the two asura perched on pieces of scavenged golem. Actually, the asura didn’t perch. They worked. With wrenches and screwdrivers, mallets and awls, they struggled to resurrect the wreckage.

“This Snaff matrix won’t fit inside the Zojja fuselage,” Zojja complained.

“Do your best,” Snaff replied, not for the first time. “It just has to work. It doesn’t have to be pretty.” He was currently replacing the shattered ankle joint of the golem.

“Can we march by morning?” Eir asked.

“Yes. Yes,” Snaff responded absently, “by morning.”

Logan took a deep breath of the frosty night air and looked to Eir. “Tell us about the Dragonspawn.”

Eir nodded pensively. “The Dragonspawn isn’t so much a man but a creature of ice and cold. He leads an army of the icebrood and Sons of Svanir.”

“I’ve heard the name,” Logan said. “What are they, anyway?”

“Two hundred fifty years ago, a hunter named Svanir and his sister Jora led a band of norn to slay the wolves that ruled Drakkar Lake. They were crossing the frozen waters when a strange presence grasped Svanir’s mind. It whispered seductions to him, promised power and prey. It was a voice of infinite hunger and hate, and Svanir listened to it.

“Jora heard the voice, too, but it terrified her. She refused its dark gifts and tried to drag her brother away, but he struck her and told her she was weak, told her he had discovered the well of power. She fled.

“Svanir remained to commune with his newfound lord.